A court hearing on a case about the torture of 142 Iraqis in UK detention opens this Friday, November 5th.
Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) are acting for 142 Iraqi civilians who complain that at various times and in different UK facilities during the period from March 2003 to December 2008, UK soldiers and interrogators subjected them to torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
All of the cases concern allegations of abuse inside UK military facilities in Iraq.
The lead claimant, Ali Zaki Mousa, brings a case on behalf of all the men.
It is being heard by a Court of Appeal Judge, Richards LJ, and a High Court Judge, Mr Justice Silber, on 5, 8 and 9 November 2010 at the Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London.
The Baha Mousa Inquiry has concluded its oral hearings and the report is due in early 2011.
A second inquiry into how the UK Armed Forces behaved in Iraq, the Al Sweady Inquiry, is due to start its oral hearings in 2011.
The Ali Zaki Mousa case argues that there must now be a single inquiry into the UK’s detention policy in South East Iraq.
The alternative is to allow the MoD to argue out each and every case which at the rate it says it can deal with cases – one at a time and one a year – will take 142 years (assuming that no new cases come forward in the meantime).
The Iraqi victims complain of many practices and techniques that have not been examined at all during the Baha Mousa Inquiry and include:
Forced nakedness, including keeping Iraqis naked if they did not cooperate with interrogators;
Sexual abuses, including rape, forced oral sex, forced adoption of prolonged oral and anal simulated sex positions, soldiers masturbating on Iraqis, female and male soldiers having sex in front of the Iraqis, playing loud hard core pornographic movies all night during Ramadan and many other troubling allegations of a sexual nature;
Food and water deprivation as a means of softening up Iraqis for interrogation;
Prolonged solitary confinement;
Prolonged sleep deprivation;
Mock executions;
‘Harshing’, including screaming insults and threats into the faces of Iraqis from close range;
Systematic use of sensory deprivation, including hoods/double hoods, blacked out goggles and earmuffs;
Threats to rape Iraqis’ wives and daughters in front of them;
Abuse of women and children at the arrest operations in homes.
Phil Shiner of PIL said on Monday: ‘This case raises a number of very troubling systemic issues about the practices and techniques used on Iraqis by soldiers and interrogators.
‘Even the MoD now concedes that its previous protestations about a “few bad apples” and “isolated incidents” is patent nonsense.
‘The question for the Court to decide comes down to not whether there should now be a single inquiry into the UK’s detention policy in Iraq but when it should be set up. The MoD want to kick all of this into the long grass.
‘Our clients are entitled to a proper inquiry into all of these cases now, not in several years time when all the evidence will be lost or forgotten.’
Mazin Younis, the Advisor for the Iraqi Rabita (League), said: ‘Since my first trip to Basra in 2004 to meet a handful of Iraqis claiming to be abused by British soldiers, the list of claimants has shot up dramatically.
‘The similarities in allegations of abuse that took place between 2003 and 2008, when thousands of British soldiers had served from different units and in many headquarters, are really astonishing.
‘These similarities may reveal a systematic policy of abuse issued by officers high up in the command chain, and may reveal immunity guaranteed to soldiers to mistreat Iraqis the way they liked with no fear of accountability.
‘At this very moment, more than 60 new cases have flooded in from southern Iraq; we don’t know yet what kinds of abuse they will be revealing.
‘Iraqis have been waiting for a long time for their voices to be heard and for justice to be restored.
‘The only way that we can handle the current and future claims of abuse made by Iraqis is through a single inquiry.
‘Iraqis will be eagerly awaiting the outcome of this hearing.’
Separately, Amnesty International is calling for the release of a Briton held unlawfully in Iraq.
Amnesty says: ‘68-year-old Ramze Shihab Ahmed has been detained in Iraq, without charge or trial, since December 2009.
‘He alleges that he has been repeatedly tortured, including being suffocated with a plastic bag, suspended by his ankles and given electric shocks to sensitive parts of his body.
‘He has never been charged with a crime and there has been no investigation into his allegations of torture.
‘Ramze went to Iraq from his home in the UK in November 2009 to try to secure the release of his son, who had been detained two months earlier.
‘Ramze has said that he was repeatedly tortured whilst he was held in the secret al-Muthanna prison between December 2009 and April 2010.
‘His family had no idea where he was being held until 25 March 2010 when he managed to call his wife from prison.
‘Ramze is currently being held at al-Rusafa prison, where he has not been tortured but is believed to be suffering from ill-health.
‘On 7 December 2009, Ramze Shihab Ahmed was in a relative’s house having dinner when Iraqi security officials arrested him.
‘None of his family knew where he was being held until 25 March 2010, when he managed to call his wife from prison.
‘He told her he was being held in a prison in the old Muthanna airport in Baghdad and that she should alert the British authorities straight away.
‘The phone conversation was immediately cut off.
‘Ramze Shihab Ahmed was transferred to al-Rusafa prison on around 13 April 2010.
‘Once in al-Rusafa prison, Ramze Shihab Ahmed described the torture he had endured in the secret Muthanna prison.
‘Following repeated torture, Ramze Shihab Ahmed eventually signed a statement which incriminated him.’
Amnesty concluded: ‘An estimated 30,000 detainees are currently being held without charge or trial in Iraqi prisons.’
